Washington Post Op-Ed: Gary Cohn ‘Necessary Man’ in Fight Against Nationalist Conservatives

Is panic setting in over the fate of Gary Cohn?

The loud calls for Gary Cohn to resign from the White House over the president’s remarks about Charlottesville have subsided. But in the wake of Cohn’s public and private criticism of the president, there’s a growing sense of worry that Cohn could resign or even be fired.

“Cohn’s problem is that he’s the proverbial one-eyed man in the valley of the blind,” Richard Cohen wrote in a Washington Post op-ed this week.

What exactly makes Cohn so special? In his op-ed, Cohen describes the chief White House economics adviser as important because of his role in the struggle against “hyper-nationalists” such as Steven Bannon.

And stay he should — for now. He is the necessary man in the president’s inner circle. It’s true that his influence may be curtailed now that he has criticized the president, but it is not true that the recent purge of White House hyper-nationalists means that Cohn is less essential. Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and, in pre-history, Michael Flynn can always reach Trump on the phone or through such outlets as Fox News or Breitbart. They lost proximity, but not influence. They still cook in the kitchen cabinet.

In other words: please, Gary, don’t go!